No More R-Word: Lysander Family Launches MySpace Campaign Against the Word "Retarded"

Alex and Trish Freid, of Lysander, have a message for the world: Stop using the "r"-word - retarded.

And they're using the Internet to send this message. The couple set up a MySpace page for their 14-month-old son, Nathan, who has Down syndrome. They're using his page to educate people about how hurtful the r-word can be even when it's not used as a taunt. And if people agree to stop using it, they can sign up to be one of Nathan's MySpace "friends."

So far, 95 people have signed up.

"Nathan, you are the cutest baby ever and my family and I want to abolish the R word too!" wrote Kelseyy, one of Nathan's new friends.

The Freids, who also have two daughters, acknowledge they used the r-word casually to mean stupid or goofy before they understood firsthand how hurtful it can be. They launched their effort on the social networking site MySpace, figuring they'd have the most influence on younger people.

"Kind of what we're trying to do is put a face to it, " Trish Freid says.

Alex Freid says he'll say something if a friend or acquaintance repeatedly uses the word. And he e-mailed Dane Cook, star of "Good Luck Chuck, " after he heard the word used in the movie.

"Morally and ethically, I would hope that you would see how this word could be very hurtful to a group of people who definitely don't deserve the ridicule, " Freid wrote in the e-mail.

Shari Bottego, president of the 180-member Down Syndrome Association of Central New York, says the problem is the word's negative connotation.

"The word itself means slow, but it's always used in a derogatory sense, " she says. "Why go negative?"

Arc of Onondaga started as the Association for Retarded Children when it opened in 1951, but the agency later changed its name to Association for Retarded Citizens and then dropped the acronym altogether about 10 years ago, says Mike Kieloch, marketing and communications specialist.

Kieloch says the agency is committed to using language that puts the person first, before the disability (see box).

"We support language that recognizes them as a person, " he says.

Gina Chen can be reached at gchen@syracuse.com or 470-2172. Read her blog at: blog.syracuse.com/family/.

Examples of ways to identify people

What's people-first language? It's putting a person first and his or her disability second. For example, people-first language would be "a person with Down syndrome, " not a "Downs baby." Advocates for people with disabilities favor people-first language because it makes the disability an aspect of the person, rather than allowing a disability to define a person. It's comparable to how any person wouldn't want to be called the "disorganized person" or the "obese person" because that allows a person's least attractive characteristic to define him or her.

What are some other examples? Advocates for people with disabilities suggest not using words such as "normal" or "typical" when applied to children in a classroom because it implies that those with disabilities are abnormal or atypical. They suggest people reword what they say to avoid those words or use "children without diagnosed disabilities" if it's really necessary to differentiate.

What about the term "mental retardation"? That's still the legal definition for a type of disability, but many people prefer to say a person with a "developmental delay" or "development disability" or who is "differently abled."

Are these hard and fast rules? No. Language evolves and connotations change over time. For example, when what later became the Syracuse Developmental Center, for people with disabilities, opened in the 1850s it was called the "Asylum for Idiots." Later it was called the institute for "feeble-minded" children and then for "mental defectives." And the term "Mongoloid" was commonly used in the past to describe people with Down syndrome, but none of these words would be acceptable today.

- Sources: Mike Kieloch, marketing and communications specialist for Arc of Onondaga; Shari Bottego, president of the Down Syndrome Association of Central New York; Post-Standard archives

Want to become Nathan's friend?

To become a friend of 14-month-old Nathan Freid, of Lysander, on his MySpace page (above), you must agree to stop using the r-word. Go to The Post-Standard's Family Life blog at blog.syracuse.com/family/ to reach the page. You can also read an essay by a Central New York teenager about the harm of using the word to mean "stupid."